MTeague

This exactly why my Fire/Fire/Fire Sentinel is a Sentinel and not a Brute or Blaster. (yes, I skipped FSC in his epic pool). And yet... I don't mind the Psi-Blades in Psi Melee. For whatever reason the flaming scimitar is a total non-starter to me, asthetically, and feel like "why concentrate fire into the shape of a blade to strike a physical blow with it, why not just BURN THEM!!?". But the Psi-Blade, work for me. I guess I can see it especially for a character who's background leaves them half-or-totally-untrained, and they're just making it in the shape of a blade, out of instinct, not really knowing HOW, just reaching for the familiar, trying for a knife, to attack with because they don't KNOW how to just do a psionic blast from afar. Why don't I afford Fire Swords the same latitude? I don't know. But that is how the very odd thought process works in my brain.

I hear you. Frankly, I find the 1-44 game vastly more fun than the 45-50 game. There *are* times.... infrequently.... where I do enjoy an incarnate romp. Where I want my main character to go Full Gandalf revealing the hidden power within But most of the time? No. I would enjoy an OPTIONAL difficulty setting for "Disable Incarnate Powers", similar to the Ouro challenges for "No Inspirations", "Enemies Buffed", "No Travel Powers", etc. I have very limited hope of that ever happening. For the time being, @Outrider_01's solution of a Gentleman's Agreement, among a group of like minded people who choose to simply unslot all Incarnate powers when forming up the team, is really the ONLY option for this. Yes, that's a lot more work. No, it's completely not pug friendly. But, well, that's life. Your average pick-up-group player probably doesn't WANT to not have access to their incarnate powers. Even if an optional setting were created, you'd have to advertise it up front and it would probably take you a lot of time in LFG chat recruiting to get a reliable squad. The good news is there is an Awful Lot of 1-44 content. In particular, I think you'd really enjoy First Ward and Night Ward. The story arcs there really kick it up a notch and make you bring your A game.

Nova Praetoria: use the "No Xp" option at lvl 9 / prevent you from dinging 10 for any Nova arcs you want to finish. Imperial City: use the "No Xp" option at lvl 14 / prevent you from dinging 15 for any Imperial City arcs you want to finish. Neutropolis: use the "No Xp" option at lvl 19 / prevent you from dinging 20 for any Neutropolis arcs you want to finish. First Ward: use the "No Xp" option at lvl 29 / prevent you from dinging 30 for any First Ward arcs you want to finish. Night Ward: fuzzier on this one, but I *think* its 39/do not ding 40.

Anyone know if the Redside Brokers have any such TV/Film/Literature connections? I'm kind of assuming no, at least, I can't place a single one of them.

I only rarely deal with invasions because when i logged on that night, I logged on to do various story arcs. I didn't log on for the sake of a Rikti invasion. If the mood hits me? Sure, I'll go. But more often than not I'm firmly in a "Nope, I'm NOT dealing with this" mode.

As a programmer, I believe this is the kind of code you try to say "Functioning As Written" and hope one looks toooo closely at that statement. I don't think it's wrong per se. I do think it's deciding on a "level to be used for conversion purposes". And then since there's no others in that category for that range, you can't convert by category. The real questions are "what SHOULD be the use-this-for-conversion-purposes" level of an attuned? And is this so big a deal that it's worth upsetting it now? Say a change is made such that it always takes the max level for an IO. What OTHER set conversions would be impacted by that? Would we replace one problem with another? Or if it were recoded to encompass anything possible anywhere in the attuned range of the current set, what issues might that cause? Would that mean you suddenly need 5x the converters you needed before to get a Steadfast Protection+Def, or a Karma/+Acc? I'm sort of leaning toward "not worth it, leave it as it is." Although it would definitely be nice if there was some way you could SEE what the "treat this as lvl X for conversion purposes" value is, at any given moment. Maybe it would be enough to just reveal that value to the end-user.

I understand there are a lot of people who feel that way. but I tell you, I have a lot more fun playing my /Regen stalker than my /Willpower scrapper. Honestly, the /regen Stalker feels a lot more durable. No small part of that is he KEEPS his sustain, the entire time, even as mobs die around him, where the scrapper starts to have issues if I kill too many mobs with AE attacks before the Big Bad (Staff/WP, scrapper is an AE beast) and I don't have enough mobs for RttC to spike the scrappers hp/s enough.

Keep in mind, Mastermind Henchmen cannot be ressurected, period. You can resummon them. And the re-summoning time is actually very small now. But your MM pets are never a valid target for Ressurect, or Vengeance, or Fallout, or any other power that you can use on a fallen player-controlled ally. That said, Empathy can work quite well as a secondary. At low levels, I find it works best Tankerminding. Keep your pets in Bodyguard Mode, charge right in and take aggro yourself. Incoming damage will be distributed among you and your pets, and they'll all be in range for heal auras. At mid-levels and up, Fortitude makes it very tempting to have your pets be your full time tank. and will a well-slotted Fort, those pets you buff will be able to do so. But keep in mind you're not really going to be able to Fort all of your pets. Most likely mid-game, your Forts will go to your T2 pets when soloing. And the T1's will just... need some care. That said, it'll get the job done. Will you be solo farming +4x8? Maybe not. But if it's a playstyle you enjoy, it don't matter. And even if some people hold a worldview off "everyone should be softcapped to everything, all the time!" the reality is that's often not the case, and I don't know of any team that's ever said "God damn it not another Empath".... So Long As, you use your Whole Toolkit, both Primary and Secondary. Someone who AFK-Follows while Autocasting Healing Aura, I have no use for. But an Empath who also uses their buffs, and either pets or blasts or controls (depending on AT), is always welcome on any team of mine.

There's a lot to be said for Brutes. But if I'm rolling up a character to use when I have absolutely no desire to EVER be asked to tank for a group? I roll Scrapper. If I'm in a mood where I wouldn't mind pulling some tanking duties on the character? I'll roll Brute. (not saying Scrappers are incapable of tanking in a pinch; but if you're a brute, at least half of teams will expect it of you as a matter of course. Scrappers, they expect to be frenzied scrapperlockers :))

While I don't have anything Kheldian specific, Bind Files are at the heart of some very popular MM binds. i recommend reading it through; https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/6500-the-homecoming-of-sandolphans-mm-numpad-binds/

You've got Warden and Crusader backwards. Crusaders = Calvin Scott's Blow It All Up, Win At Any Price faction. I'd say Villain or Vigilante. Depends how focused you are on killing Cole (vig) or just blowing things up (Villain). Wardens = Vanessa DeVore's win the hearts of the people, try to enable change from within. Honestly, more Hero than Vig. Responsibility = the folks who know the Praetors are... jerks... but who still feel the human race would no longer exist if not for Cole and the Praetors. They do believe in justice but they're also generally good people stuck in a complete lose-lose scenario. Trying to keep things together and hating what they have to let slide. Like, Inspector Kang. Has to let his own daughter be taken and turned into a Seer, turned into a husk of what she once was, in the name of "helping hold praetoria together". Very much a "Good of the Many Outweighs the Needs of the Few, or One" even if that means you have to inflict serious INJUSTICES on the Few, or One. They probably would be Heroes if not completely surrounded by the lose-lose scenarios though. Power = All about Fame, personal accolades, living large, and keeping the noses of anyone who might challenge them firmly pushed into the dirt. Villain for sure. Possssibly a more ruthless Rogue if they still have some lines they won't cross.

Just curious. Why do people feel this is not also the case for Primal Earth heroes? Do you really feel that Bonefire arc or the Vahzilok Plague Arc or Posi 1 or even talking to Stephanie Peebles on Striga really count as "part of the present narrative" in a way that Nova Praetoria does not count? It's all story arcs we've all done a bazillion times. Maybe you don't find some of them fun, sure, no problem, I can work with that. But I mean, it's not like your hero is the very first hero to ever help David Wincott or talk to Frostfire or handle Veles. And if you say "well I'm the first character to do it in my character's narrative", well, okay sure, but then in that case, how is the Praetoria 1-20 not the same?

Mind. Blown. I was still locked into thinking of Teleport Target as "Recall Friend" or "Teleport Foe". Never occurred to me to use it to forcibly reposition a pet..... or to teleport a friendly somewhere OTHER than "right next to me".

I'm barely at 40 characters grand total. I know I'm such a slacker lol. Only 4 of them are lvl 50. the other 36 are pretty well distributed, some in the 40's, 30's, 20's, 10's, and single digits. But i deliberately lvl super slow, turning off XP a lot as I go, until I think it's "time" for them to graduate a level.

Dunno about Earth Blast. Does remind me of some of the powers used by https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Talons_of_Vengeance#Oracle_.28Earth.29 though.

I get that. The amount of time I spent fiddling with the body sliders to get the height/physique/leg length etc to match my old screenshots, and poking through every last costume option and sub-option in every category until everything was just right, was very real. Just do be aware. Homecoming came online April 2019. It's now May 2021. You may or may not be able to get the exact precise spelling of the names of your original characters. There are multiple shards; if you can't get it on Excelsior, try Everlasting, or Torchbearer, etc. But you may have to go from "Iron Eagle" to "Iron Ace" or go from "Firehawk" to "Doctor Phoenix" or something along those lines. Hopefully you can get exactly the names you want. But be ready to get creative if not. I had to alter the names of 4 of my original 10 characters that I recreated, and cooked up another 30 originals afterwards.

I support anything that could help dilute the ridiculous amount of Longbow on the Isles.

I suddenly feel a need to respec my Mind/Kin to add Enflame to his toolkit. I have been *Quite* happy with New Enflame on my Staff/WP praetorian scrapper in several of the nastier First Ward missions.

It comes down to reliability. If you go "All In" and softcap defenses on your Fiery Aura character, then your resistances almost don't matter. With very good healing and most things missing you, you're probably good. Probably. ("they mostly come out at night. mostly") But.... with no DDR... you always have to keep in the back of your mind that that defense is fragile. And not every Defense Debuff requires a hit check. Or if you're tanking a LOT of mobs at once, it only takes that first lucky hit for the Cascade to begin. I'm still wrestling with it myself. I don't like having defense be that fragile. But if you don't go nuts and stack defenses Very high, it almost feels like there's no point, because a 28% defense will get ripped down by common debuffs quickly. But ignoring defense entirely and being pure resist + heals isn't often enough. Ultimately, I'm slowly coalescing on "Stack Mainly Resist and Some Defense.... when soloing I'll only have the resist + heals.... when teamed, team buffs can finish my defense". With the option to pop multiple lucks for very hard fights solo. Still not 100% sure of that plan, but what I'm moving toward.

Wait? You're saying a Scrapper is capable of doing something other than targeting an enemy and attacking? Are you sure about that? 'Cause I don't think I've ever seen it happen.

I mean, that's something players would simply learn. Or not. Not unlike the days when people would cry out that they needed heals to a Trick Arrow defender, who'd be like "oh yea, I got a Healing Arrow right here. It's a suppository. Bend over." Snark aside, it is important for players to know what powersets bring what powers to the table. Not everyone can free everyone from status effects. Even powers that DO free you from status effects, don't always work on ALL status effects. Kinetics/Increase Density won't do a darn thing for Fear or Confuse, though it does add some Smashing/Energy resistance Poison/Antidote covers all the traditional Clear Mind effects, while also giving Cold and Toxic and Slow Resistance. ForceField/DispersionBubble protects vs Hold,Immob,Stun, but won't do anything abou Fear/Confuse/Sleep. StormSummoning/O2 boost protects against Stun and Sleep, and Endurance Drain (malta anyone?), but won't free you from Hold, Fear, Immob, or Confuse. and several, such as Time, Trick Arrow, Cold, Nature, etc just have nothing. You on your own. Personally, I wouldn't want words flashing over people's heads, but as long as I can turn it off, I'm fine with it. A UI based indicator / color change to health bars would be less invasive for me, but I do get there can be colorblindness issues to wrestle with too, and choosing what kind of indicator is best for a variety of people. Letting the end user choose is best, but of course, requires more coding and testing.

I suppose part of my thing is a conviction that half of the P2W powers shouldn't even exist. At all. Period. Yes, I know they existed on LIVE. Yes, I know they're never ever ever going away. Yes, I know I'm leaving resources untouched on the table by not using them. Yes, I know they don't cost real-life money now. But I still view P2W powers through the lens of "you're from the dark times.... when microtransactions were infecting my favorite game that should have always remained a flat subscription". (No, I'm not always rational).

This deserves a "We Love The King Day".

Plant / Psi is crazy good. Seeds of Confusion is stupidly good. Most mobs will be busy beating up each other and you just rip them apart while they do. Very easy to tag them enough to get exp, and if you occasionally miss a minion or two, eh, it really don't matter. Mind Probe hits very hard and most things don't have Psi Resist. I do recommend TK Thrust though (smashing), for those robots and other things that DO have substantial psi resist Drain Psyche provides you with a very large +Regen and +Recovery as well as debuffing targets. Seeds of Confusion Hope into the pack Drain Psyche for many stacks of +Regen Profit! Plant also gives you access to Tree of Life, which if you choose to slot it up, is right up there with Triage Beacon, and with enough recharge you can have TWO up at once. Carrion Creepers is almost more fun than should be legal. Fly Trap is a pretty beefy pet. Far more durable than you'd think to look at him.

Welcome! I'm not sure how doable Consoles are or not. Particularly given the kind of no-man's land that the legalities off the private servers exist in. I know lawyers can take for EVER to approve something, and NCSoft may actually prefer to leave the game in a legal limbo. I still have hopes something will come from the HC team talking to NCSoft, but it feels like all those decades when I hoped the Cubs could win the World Series, you know? Still, miracles CAN happen.... I do believe the question of reclaiming characters from LIVE has been answered with a firm Never Going To Happen. Some old threads certainly suggest so, anyway. EDIT: That said, it's pretty fast to level up and gear up characters now. VASTLY easier to get the IO sets than it was back in the day.